California Conservative

Clarence Page’s column is a good example of how willing the media is to give President OBama a free pass from reality. It’s also a good illustration of how out of touch parts of the media are with what’s important. Here’s the opening paragraph of Page’s column:

His wife may have attracted more camera attention, but the Group of 20 economic summit in London was President Barack Obama’s show. He didn’t get everything he wanted in his first presidential foray onto the world stage, but he passed his audition.

America’s president is not called “leader of the free world” for nothing. Like it or not, the world looks to this country for leadership in the way old folks look to their kids or grandkids for help logging onto the Internet. The world’s other leaders appreciate us and resent us at the same time. Sometimes they want our help and sometimes they want to slap us around.

To say that President Obama “didn’t get everything he wanted” on this trip is understatement. Angela Merkel’s criticizing President Obama’s irresponsible budget was embarrassing. Couple that with the socialists in China criticizing his economic plans and a theme emerges. That theme is that President Obama is irresponsible and isn’t likely to lead the global economy out of the dumps.

Another thing is becoming obvious: these leaders will say anything to make him look good because they know they can push him around. It’s the world’s leaders’ dream come true to find a president that they can lecture and push around. Their dreams just came true.

This stems from a generation of Democrats who worry that America isn’t liked but isn’t worried whether we’re respected.

Nevertheless, Obama’s comfort with give-and-take appears to have relieved world leaders.

Oh really?

Ed Morrissey is spot on with this post:

As Diehl notes, Obama’s “pliability” did not go unnoticed. Angela Merkel refused to consider Obama’s plan of government stimulus spending (which in this case was a smart choice anyway). Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on getting his statist expansion, and got it. Very little occurred in terms of negotiations, but it seems Europe had no trouble with ultimatums.

This isn’t “smart power.” It’s mindless, unilateral surrender. That seems to be Obama’s specialty at home and abroad.

Why wouldn’t these leaders appreciate Obama’s administration? They push him a little and he caves. Thus far, what proof is there that President Obama will stand up for the United States’ interests? There’s abundant proof that he’s willing to do exactly what European leaders want him to do.

There’s abundant proof that this is President Obama is pursuing Jimmy Carter’s disastrous foreign policies. He’s the leader of the free world in name only. The reality is that he’s the ‘man most likely to cave’. He’s also the man most likely to let Europe do whatever it wants, even if what they want to do is push us around.

That isn’t leadership. There’s a word that better describes what it really is: appeasement.

That’s before I start talking about the disastrous policy decision he made. Here’s what Dick Morris said about his disaster:

Were this video coming from someone that the Obama administration deemed a radical right wing zealot, they could villify that person. It isn’t. It’s coming from one of President Clinton’s most trusted advisers. It’s impossible to brand Dick Morris a crazy right wing zealot.

In summation, the ‘highlights’ of President Obama’s first international trip were his caving to other world leaders, his agreeing to turn United States’ sovereignty over to the EU, and his being tongue-tied during a press conference.

If that’s what’s considered President Obama “passing his audition”, then there’s a ridiculously low standard for passing international auditions. What’s more likely is that the press, Mr. Page included, has set a ridiculously low standard for passing international auditions.

Unfortunately, we’ve got 3 more years of the United States being the world’s laughingstock. God help us all.

Technorati Tags: Stimulus, President Obama, Appeasement, Sovereignty, Europe, Angela Merkel, Fiscal Restraint, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton Foreign Policy

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 6:17 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Europe, Foreign Policy, Liberals, Obama, U.N.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.